I Scream, You Scream

Walking down the Rathmines Road this morning, I passed two wretched looking specimens eating Cornettos at the bus stop. My hangover, conveniently ignoring all visual and olfactory clues as to the unfortunate pair's reduced circumstances, ups the grouch a notch. Lucky bastards.

Schnapps, Chianti, Porter And Ouzo, Pernod, Vodka, Sambuca...

I got up at midday to make some breakfast and set the toast on fire. Not enough for me just to burn it - I had to douse the flames in the sink before consigning the charred remains to the bin. I returned, defeated, to the safety of my bed only to spill tea all over it. Well, all over his side of it.

I got up again at 5.

Patent Pending

I bit the top off my Cadbury's Caramel egg. With a determined tongue, I delved deep and removed most of the filling. Most, but not all. Then, using a small spoon, I carefully filled the shell with tea. Waited for a melting moment, then drank deep.

It's been that kind of day.

The Hills! My Eyes!

I spent Sunday afternoon in Athlone, in the recovery position. Watching The Hills on MTV. For the first ten minutes or so I complained. Loudly. Disgusted by their vacuousness and by the fact that I couldn't tell any of them apart.

Three episodes in, I got it. "Is it a hamster or a guinea pig?" Lauren asked Stephanie. "Because hamsters are, like, this big..." (makes circle with forefinger and thumb). Stephanie smiles confusedly.

"She used to be a hamster, but now she's a guinea pig".

I love her. I watched it from midday right through until 7pm.

And then I watched Run's House.

Mind The Gap

The train was filling up. Praiseach de phótairí strewn about the carriage, spreading legs and luggage across the seats in an effort to secure some space for their hangovers. Morning-after-the-night-before gaeilgeoirí. The worst kind.

She blustered onto the train at Mala, and the other passengers averted their eyes. Mine, however, were fucking glued to her. Mad, brassy burgundy coloured hair, denim jeans and a fringed denim jacket, she was all rhinestones and righteousness, looking about her like she wanted to batter the face off the next one who looked crooked at her. So I swept my handbag into a cuddle on my lap and nodded at the seat beside me. She looked grateful, and a little like she might bite me. Once she'd settled, the natter kicked off; each episode illustrated with photos from her camera phone. I'm pretty intimately acquainted with her domestic situation at this stage, everything from her ma's fibroids to her dog's gluecoma. He has a good heart though, she tells me, so he'll live for ages with it. He just keeps walking into things. I know people just like that, I tell her. She makes me smile all the way to Thurles, this pavee lackeen, and leaves me with a hug and a thank you. For what? I asked her. Nothing, she laughed, and she barrelled back out through the carriage with the same fonn troda on her that she had when she stomped in.

I think I fell a little in love with her.

As the train pulls away from Thurles we pass acres of flooded farmland. There are sheep standing in grumpy little clusters atop the hillocks that punctuate the dreary landscape. A pair of swans glide majestically across the submerged pastures, looking for all the world like they own the place. I stretch out and slip my headphones on, pleased that for the next two hours I can idle in daydreams. There are no more stops until Heuston, so I cast my thoughts adrift again to paddle across the sodden plains. More swan than sheep.

Beo (Ach Ar Éigin) Ón Oireachtas

A quiet dinner, a sociable drink, an early night. Blue steak and white wine (I know, I know) with a generous serving of sparky budgies on the side. The drink was a very fucking sociable one; she batted her lashes and made me loquacious, so I batted my own and I made them laugh.

I did this knowing that I had no happy painkillers to see me through whatever repercussions this morning might bring. What odds, I thought, it's not like a hangover's ever killed anybody. It'll be better before you're twice married. Hoor it out. Offer up your suffering.

The hangover kicked in at 6.30am, and my grave error was upgraded to a possibly fatal mistake. Probably fatal. I wished it were, at least. Four glasses of water and a sorry whimper later, I fell back asleep, only to wake again at 9.30 in pretty much exactly the same fucking state. And what a state.

So I dress, in the loosest sense of the word, to go in search of a cure. I tiptoe into the hotel lift with a grimace so pained and a headache so disabling that the lady in it suspects I might actually be disabled, and presses my button for me. There's a Spar just across from the hotel entrance and never has their slogan seemed more apt; All you need (is paracetamol) when you need it (about 8 hours ago, but you can make it up to me). I trip in and wander aimlessly up and down the aisles, for no good reason. I know that they keep it behind the counter, but my pride won't allow me to totter up, vulnerable and bleary-eyed, and tell the nice lady what I want. It's like buying lube with potatoes and milk in Tesco; I'm trying to hide the fact that I am braless and hungover by buying other "respectable" things too, like, eh, Sunny Delight and the Irish Times.

Mission accomplished, I hurry back to my room (Pride, inconvenient bitch that she is, not allowing me to neck the paracetamol as I stroll across the lobby, and Dexterity colluding with her and not allowing me to open the Sunny D, because Dexterity is just a bit of cunt anyway). Those ten minutes between swallowing the tablets and their tentative massaging of my temples seem like the longest of my life.

Thus fortified, I head for breakfast and sit singing along to Elton John's Rocketman, looking out at the sun shining on the river Lee. Cork looks lovely in the winter sunshine. The rashers glint under their heatlamp, the eggs wobble like runny little diddies in their greasy bath. I burst two in my effort to claim one, only afterwards noticing the slice which surely would have made for a better tool to lift them with than the sausage tongs. Shrug. Laugh. Fuck it. My rubber arms have gotten me tangled up in blue again, but I'm happy. My hangover and I, we're cool. Je ne regrette rien, and she knows it.

Final Boarding Call

Dublin Airport must surely be one of the worst places on earth to endure with a hangover. Everyone there seems overexcited or just plain anxious, Hustle is running around, tripping over suitcases and dragging Bustle by the hand. I am struggling to muster the energy to breathe.

I go to the bathroom, too dehydrated to have any need of it but seeking some sanctuary regardless. My reflection shocks me - I am barelegged, and too pale. Underneath my glasses I look like I have been crying.

I feel like I might yet.

I make my way up to the departures lounge and visit the pharmacy there for eye drops and Lucozade. The cashier looks disapprovingly at my mirrored shades and then reminds me that I will need to finish the 'zade before I go through security. Fuck. I think about going back to the fridge and choosing one of the smaller bottles, but thirst and thrift win out - this one has 25% extra free.

I crack the bottle's seal as my troubled thoughts and I glide back down the escalator. And drink deep, they will not take it from me.

Only then do I remember that I'm not flying anywhere today.

Oh, Christ

Sunday morning, the croissants are in the oven, the tea is cooling by my elbow, the Sunday Business Show is on the radio. I couldn't give a fuck about business and have never understood money but I find their dull and earnest chatter soothing. And this morning I need to be soothed, to have the strangers on the radio stroke my hair and tell me that really, it'll be okay. Normally at this hour on a Sunday I'd be spooning with my hangover, or maybe taking it down to Merrion Square to read the newspaper and get some air. Normally at this hour on a Sunday I am not primping and preening, trying to iron out my kinks and curls. I've spent the past hour trying to choose the least inappropriate outfit in my wardrobe, brown skirt, tan stockings, gold shoes, bangles (because to me, bangles seem sophisticated). The Swede did a double-take when I walked into the kitchen, and then laughed. "You look lovely" he said, revelling in my obvious discomfort before relenting and giving me a hug.

The cause of all this distress is sitting opposite me as I type, reading Annie's interview in the Times and blithely sipping his coffee. His nephew is to be christened this morning, and I am to be his guest. To meet his parents, and his sister. There is to be a reception, and a bouncy castle, and polite chatter; I am particularly looking forward to explaining how we met.

Reader's Choice #4

My Favourite TV3 Weatherman

for Andrew, who had better bring me a Toblerone home from Egypt

Weather reports on Irish television have become laughably redundant, what with global warming and the coming apocalypse. When I was a kid it was all sunny spells and scattered showers, now apologetic RTÉ presenters (I'm looking at you, Gerald Fleming, and that other fucker with the mad Louth twang) give anxious warnings about rain, and announce sunshine with such tentative, doubtful optimism that you wonder if they fear a lynching. I think that if I were to accidentally pay a TV licence fee, the weather report would be an awful way to waste my money. Perhaps not awfuller than Fáilte Towers, but RTÉ weather neither informs nor entertains me and the European forecasts that they occasionally carry on with are just insulting; like watching cheffy wonders on Saturday Kitchen while you hoover up stale cornflakes. Those two minutes would be better spent with a second Angelus. That at least raises a smile.

So respeck!! to Martin King, who jazzied up the weather reports in the early days of TV3 by turning it into some Winning Streak cum Parish News style form of entertainment. The weather slot opened its sticky embrace up to Joe Public and invited viewers to bump uglies with its content. Birthday wishes! Send us in a photo! It's like the art slot on The Den, only for nanas. Nanas from places like Longford, and Ballina.

TG4 have the right idea; just go with some tits. Scorchio.

But I digress - this post is supposed to be all about Mr. King. I did develop some small affection for the bould Martin back when I worked as a fraud detective* for an Irish financial institution whose name rhymes with "make the tea". I'd rouse myself from my bed at 7am each Saturday when Martin's dulcet tones shrilled at me from the radio alarm clock. His Breakfast Show on Today FM was the perfect soundtrack to those mornings; wake up, sniff the air (vodka, cigarettes) and realise with a crushing sense of defeat that it was Saturday and I had to go to work. His pithiful patter seemed to sit well with my awkward transition from drunk to hungover, as I sat looking balefully at my shoes, trying to find the will to breathe, and to tie my laces. I'd muse over "What's That Sound?" and marvel at the chirpy idiocy of the contestants ("is it Rice Krispies, Larry?" "Well Pat, it's Martin King here and I'm afraid that's not the answer we're looking for!" "Oh..." says Pat, trailing off confusedly and uncomfortably). Our hero Martin lets that awkward silence hang.

These days I can't bear to listen to talk radio - inane presenter prattle and insane, irrelevant callers. I no longer work on Saturdays, I have more pleasant ways to spent my time and more pleasant sounds to rouse me from my slumber. Like the heart-attack inducing beep of an alarm, or the insistent whine of my bladder.

*Not as exciting as it sounds.

Rí Rá Agus Ruaille Buaille

I rolled over this morning in a desperate search for the cool side of the pillow and found my hangover snuggling up in the bed beside me, waggling his eyebrows and poking me in that soft spot under my ribs. Fuck off, hangover. I'm feeding him apple & beetroot juice (which he loves) and other people's blogs (but only the ones that tickle him; Saturday mornings are no place for seriousness). He'll eventually start whining for breakfast and I'll have to rouse myself and scrub him from my skin with a shower set to "boil wash", because I was in RíRá's last night.

Yesterday was a game of two halves - I spent a pleasant day playing tourist in the Boyne Valley, trying to be sweet, charming and knowledgeable ("well, I do have a degree in archaeology...") but really just prattling at my indulgent audience of one. I wore myself out with all my bullshit and teeth-gnashing every time a guide said "celtic" but a quick nap on the bus home saw me right. My efforts to impress him further saw me whipping up some vegetarian pasta (because I too can be indulgent) but my mad kitchen skillz were slightly hampered by half a bottle of wine, and I set the place on fire. Luckily the Leitrim Lady was paying more attention than I and spotted the melting chopping board which I had placed firmly on the scalding hot hob. She left me this morning to go travel the world until October so if any of you would like to come babysit, I could probably do with being watched.

Having fed my charge with everything green in the fridge (including the Heineken) we tipped off down to Neary's to meet the Jock, the SWF and other assorted odd-balls and end-offs. Neary's has an upstairs, did you know that? A lounge, with tables, chairs, toilets and service. It puts one rightly in the mood for the weekend. On to RíRá then to see The Glitch Mob, but in true Rosie style I was out by a week on the dates, so we got a couch in the corner and hit the Jaegerbombs instead. The barmaid was less than impressed with my bombing technique; it seems that dropping the shot glass into the larger one before you've poured the Red Bull in just smashes the glass all over the bar. I had a second go, just to make sure. She was even less than less than impressed. There was less than impressedness all round when my playdate stood me up for more illustrious company - he eventually showed after they'd shut the doors and then sneakily disarmed me with sincere flattery after I'd snuck him in past the affable bouncer. Cheek. The end of the night saw some Brazilian dude playing the spoons on the bar to a rapt audience in the Globe, and the Jock and I trying to charm our way into the Odessa Club. No dice, and I can't say I blame them; my argument as to why the doorman should propose me as a member was not entirely convincing, and the Jock's insistent "but what time do you serve until?" betrayed our true intentions. Defeated, I headed home to the Leitrim Lady and a drunken Swede ("may I say, your eyelashes are lovely"). She woke me for a hug at 6am before she left, and I woke again at 10am with a vague recollection of it and a warm, fuzzy head.

Good Day

I woke up this morning from a delicious dream only to find that I was in bed not with him, but with the Tuesday Booze Blues. Blue as raspberry Mr Freeze, blue as Neil Diamond's jeans. But there was milk for my breakfast and it did not rain on my way to work. I spent a quietly busy day there, burying my nose in some complicated grammar and snuftying around everyone's blogs for a little light relief. Wondering what to write for my own.

Lunchtime saw me off to the beautician's for a wax. "It's great to get these things out of the way while you're on your break, isn't it?" "Mmmmmff" I replied through gritted teeth, all too aware of my tendency to overshare in these situations (if there is a woman hovering over my ladygarden with hot wax I will tell her anything, without really meaning to). Relieved to be released from her care, I headed back to the office only to realise that she'd left a little wax on my skin and my thighs were sticking together, by mid-afternoon my knickers were firmly glued to me. And I was a hair's breadth from a strop.

"What do you do to cheer yourself up?" a friend asked, after I confided to him that I had either PMS or schizophrenia. "Cook, walk, read" I replied, knowing full well that I was going to get a taxi home and "enjoy" some cornflakes in front of Hollyoaks - the afternoon's conversations had cheered me sufficiently to warrant it. I'm in bad form. But people don't take my ill humour seriously when my hair is this curly, and nor should I, for I have nothing to be a grumpy cunt about.

So today, ladies and gentlemen, was a good day.

But I Came In Anyway

Excellent reasons to call in sick to work:

• SARS
• MRSA
• AIDS
• Lots of other four letter acronyms
• Chicken Pox
• Smallpox
• Monkey Pox (it exists)
• Any other type of pox

Not quite so excellent reasons to call in sick to work:

• Hangover
• Beard rash

Blog Budgies All Aflutter

The three redheads and I strolled across to Hogans, chatting idly about how odd it was that we were spending our Sunday afternoon in the company of strange women off th'internet. "Annie'll be in later" I gushed, stopping just short of shouting "I know her!" in my efforts to prove that I'm a well rounded human being with fleshly friends (even though Annie is, technically, another strange woman off th'internet). Anyone else? "Ricochet" I replied, casually. There was a confused flutter - who the fuck asked him? Um... "He's a celebrity!" Helen squeaked. Is he? I wouldn't know, I don't listen to the radio.

My sister wants to know if I'm hooking up with Dusty Rhodes next week.

We behaved ourselves well enough for a while but by the time Ms. Atkins arrived (with my stuffed dog Chico in her handbag) we were easy in one another's company and our gossip was greased with gin (the determinedly sober Ricochet had beaten a wise and hasty retreat by then). Boys and bloggers formed the basis of conversations best not reported, the ladies indulged my louche loquaciousness, friendships were forged and my Monday morning ended up being sponsored by the makers of Lucozade sport and Nurofen Plus.

Sure what else would you be doing on a Sunday?

Reverse Stalking On Statcounter

To my avid reader from the Department Of Agriculture Disaster Recovery Site - what do you do? I like to think it's superheroic. I'm a complete cow with a catastrophic hangover - do I qualify for assistance?

There's Nothing Quite Like...

...dirt under your fingernails to remind you that

(a) you're back in Kildare for the weekend.
(b) your rubber arms saw you banjoed in the Naas Court Hotel. Again.
(c) your brother didn't leave the key out as promised.
(d) you've been rooting in the flowerbeds for 15 minutes looking for the key that he forgot to leave out.
(e) you've been throwing lumps of said flowerbeds at his window (any window) in an effort to wake the cunt... and
(f) you've decided to wreak revenge by leaving mucky, buttery fingerprints all over his laptop. Serves him right.

Though he'll likely be fine in the morning.

Teetering On The Edge

I'm glad my first exam is tomorrow, because I don't think I can take much more of this trying to balance study and sanity stuff. I found myself explaining to my mother over breakfast that no, I hadn't showered this morning because "I need to have something to look forward to later". Barring some cosmic, karmic outside influence or the interference of some kindly and determined soul, that shower will undoubtedly be the highlight of my day.

Three exams. Two days. By 5pm on Saturday afternoon I will be done. By 10pm on Saturday night I hope to be a little drunk and by midnight I hope to be nodding enthusiastically out of time to DJ Yoda*, who has kindly agreed to play the POD in celebration of my finishing my exams.

*Funny aside: a friend and I went to see DJ Yoda in Rogue on Dame St a few years ago, full of giddy enthusiasm. We were only fucking delighted when we got there to discover that it was only a fiver on the door, though we were a little disappointed that the turn out was so poor. It took us a good half hour to cop that we'd gotten the days of the week mixed up - Yoda wasn't due to play til the following night. Sensible as we are, we decided to keep our powder dry and head home for a few quiet beers chez him, vastly underestimating how mangled we already were. At 4am we were wandering around Clonskeagh looking for ice-cream, jabbering about how much fun we'd have at the gig the following night...

This was just a couple of months after I turned up a month too early for an Ocean Colour Scene gig in the Olympia. Now that's an embarrassing story.

Contenders, Ready!

I sat down to a dinner of toast and marmalade and lo, what was on the tellybox but Gladiators! It was like being 12 again, but with the critical eye of a hungover 27 year old... Good fuck, it's all camel toe and budgie smugglers! Was it like that in the 90s?

The official site is flashy, loud and annoying, but worth a look simply because the little arrows to navigate the animation in the main screen poke the gladiators in their bulging crotches. We'll assume this was accidental. Sunday evenings will never be the same again.

On The Bright Side

No matter how devastating my hangover is, at least I'm not lugging it with me to the airport after two hours sleep.

Happy flying, Doc.

Gang Aft Agley

The Plan was to:

• Meet the Jock and the SWF for a drink.
  
• Keep it close to home (Kennedy's) and stay for three drinks, maximum.
• Be in bed by 11pm and fresh for study by 9am.
  
• Ignore the New Daddy's taunts and resist getting a taxi over to Sin É.
• Remain unswayed by that strange man with alarmingly straightforward manners (again).

It was a good plan, but I'm afraid the execution was very poor.

Booze Blues

Day #2 of the hangover's the doozy - the physical symptoms are no more but the vague sense of disappointment prevails. Still, Great Friday was a raging success. The house is pristine apart from the chunk of porcelain missing from the downstairs jacks (how does one break the inside rim of a toilet bowl?) and the stale smell will hopefully be gone by the time my folks arrive back tomorrow. I played the hostess with the mostess until I got as jarred as my guests, at which point I danced like, I dunno, something that can't dance, and then made out with a very very cute boy in front of all and sundry.

Good work.

Now I need to set about planning my next adventure, as without something to look forward to I shall succumb to the booze blues and spend the rest of the week lazing despondantly on the couch, watching Project Catwalk reruns and laughing out loud every time Ben de Lisi cries.